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WAS 



BRONSON ALCOTT'S SCHOOL 



A TYPE OF 



GOD'S MORAL GOVERNMENT? 



A REVIEW OF 



JOSEPH COOK'S THEOKY OE THE ATONEMEKT. 



WASHINGTON GLADDEN. 
M 



BOSTON: 

LOCKWOOD, BROOKS, AND COMPANY, 
1877. 







&s 



Copyright, 1877, 
Br LOCKWOOD, BROOKS, & CO. 




Franklin Press : 

Rand, Avery, & Company 

117 Franklin Street, 

Boston, 



THEOKIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 



No small stir has been made in religious cir- 
cles during the last winter, by the lectures of 
the Rev. Joseph Cook, in the city of Boston, 
upon various topics of science, philosophy, and 
religion. Mr. Cook has been hailed as the 
champion of the orthodox faith long hoped for, 
come at last ; his lectures have been listened to 
by crowded and applauding congregations, and 
read in various newspaper reports by a multi- 
tude of people. 

In one respect, at least, his work has been a 
remarkable success. To have got, for such 
themes, so wide a hearing, is in itself a notable 
feat of intellect. And I, for one, am neither 
prepared to deny nor disposed to doubt that 
much of this discussion has been of great 
service to the highest interests. In Mr. Cook's 
criticisms of the materialistic philosophy (which 
is no philosophy) ; in his sharp call for the pre- 
vious question, which the modern sceptics are 
determined not to hear; in his exposures of the 



JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 



flimsy logic by which the positions of godless 
science are often reached, — he has shown the 
inconclusiveness of much of the current unbe- 
lief, and has helped to strengthen the faith of 
men in the things that are unseen and eternal. 
I am also indebted to him for clear statements 
of some truths of theology, and for many stim- 
ulating suggestions. 

Nevertheless I am not yet convinced that 
Mr. Cook is infallible ; and over some of the 
roads that are now well beaten by his repeti- 
tious assertions my thought refuses to follow 
him. 

Perhaps it is given to few of us to know 
when we are doing our best work. That with 
which we are best satisfied is not always our 
highest achievement. In Mr. Cook's own opin- 
ion, his theological masterpiece seems to be his 
restatement of the doctrine of the atonement ; 
but, to those who look on more coolly from 
without, this judgment is open to some ques- 
tioning. It may turn out, after a little space, 
that his credit as a philosopher has been dam- 
aged by his speculations on this subject more 
than by any thing else that he has undertaken. 

I have ventured upon a somewhat careful 
examination of Mr. Cook's theory of the atone- 
ment ; and I beg leave to state very briefly my 
reasons for doing so. 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 5 

In the first place, the subject has been 
brought sharply before the public ; men are 
thinking about it everywhere ; and, if the truth 
be not all told, it may be well to tell a little 
more of it. Mr. Cook has rather rudely brushed 
away, in his denials, doctrines which many good 
Christians yet believe ; and he has tried to put 
in their place something which he regards as 
more rational. His denials have been more 
effective than his affirmations. He has made it 
plain that some things that have been believed 
hitherto can be believed no longer ; but he has 
by no means made it plain what we are to 
believe in their stead. The work of theological 
reconstruction is always easy, so far as the pull- 
ing-down process is concerned: the rebuilding 
process is quite another thing. And the struc- 
ture which Mr. Cook has put in place of those 
theories of the atonement once held is so badly 
planned and so poorly built that they who take 
refuge in it are sure before long to find it tum- 
bling down upon their heads. It is the simple 
duty of those by whom the defects of this 
theory are clearly seen, to point them out to 
those who have not seen them. 

In the second place, a thorough examination 
of the doctrine of the atonement ought to be, in 
itself, a useful exercise. The theme is one that 
is worthy of our most reverent and most ener- 



JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 



getic thought ; and, although the conclusion of 
our deepest investigations will leave many 
things connected with it in mystery, yet we 
may hope to reach some explanation of the 
work of Christ that shall accord with our rea- 
son, and that shall not conflict with the spirit of 
God's word. 

It ought to be said, however, at the outset, 
that the belief of no given theory of the 
atonement is essential to the salvation of any 
individual. Men are not saved by believing 
theories of the atonement : they are saved by 
believing on Christ. 

Two physicians may agree as to the medicine 
that ought to be prescribed for a sick man, and 
yet have very different theories as to how the 
medicine works. Experience may have proved 
to both of them that it is the right medicine to 
give, because it always cures the disease ; but, 
when they undertake to explain the philosophy 
of the cure, they may greatly differ. It is im- 
portant that they sjiould understand (and it may 
be well enough that the patient should himself 
understand) just how the medicine works ; but 
it is not essential to the cure of this patient, that 
the doctors or the patient should know all the 
process by which the cure is effected : the es- 
sential thing is, that the doctors should give the 
medicine, and that the patient should take it. 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 7 

Just so the remedy for sin is trust in Jesus 
Christ, acceptance of him as Saviour and Lord. 
It is well that the teacher of religion and the 
Christian believer should have some consistent 
explanation of the way in which Christ saves 
us, but it is not essential that we know how he 
does it : the essential thing is that we should let 
him do it. Of course we must have some clear 
belief about Christ himself, that he is One who 
is able to save to the uttermost all that come to 
him, or we shall not intrust ourselves to him. 
But if we have a confidence in his power and 
willingness to save us which leads us to accept 
him as our Saviour, and to devote our lives to 
his service, we may be saved by him from sin, 
even though our philosophy of salvation may 
be altogether imperfect. 

A little study of the history of doctrines will 
make it evident that belief in a theory of the 
atonement is not essential to salvation. For 
the first thousand years after Christ, the great 
majority of the theologians taught that Christ 
was a ransom delivered by God to the devil for 
the deliverance of the human race. The theory 
was by no means uniform in its statement, but 
in the general representation the atonement was 
made to be either a bargain or a contest be- 
tween God and the devil, in which, either by 
force or by fraud on the part of God, or by 



8 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

blundering or over-reaching on the part of the 
devil, the legal rights of the latter in the human 
race were extinguished. Dr. Dale speaks none 
too strongly when he characterizes this theory 
of ransom as not only " rude and coarse," but 
also as intolerable, " monstrous, and profane." 

Anselm's theory came next ; and, in a moral 
point of view, it was a great improvement on 
that which it superseded. This theory repre- 
sents the work of Christ as restoring to God the 
honor of which sin had robbed him ; as paying 
the debt due to God on account of sin. As he 
was man, perfect obedience was required of 
him: that he rendered. But the suffering of 
death could not have been required of him : 
when as the God-man he endured that, he did 
just so much more than he was under obligation 
to do, and accumulated a fund of surplus merit, 
out of which the debts of all who believe on 
him are paid. 

Then followed the theory of the reformers, 
Luther, Calvin, and their contemporaries, in 
which the doctrine that Christ is our legal sub- 
stitute, and that the penalty of our sins is in- 
flicted upon him, obtains its first clear and 
emphatic statement. 

After this came the governmental theory of 
the great publicist, Grotius, elaborated in later 
years by the New-England theologians, and 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 9 

forming the basis of Mr. Cook's doctrine, which 
we are presently to examine. 

All of these theories, it will be observed, are 
or have been " orthodox." Now, if salvation 
depends on the belief of any given theoiy, the 
great majority of professing Christians must 
have been lost, for not one of these has been 
believed by any thing more than a fraction of 
the Church ; and they are by no means the same 
in substance ; they are utterly unlike : they are 
even contradictory. And the thought easily 
suggests itself, that a doctrine which has passed 
through so many changes of form may even yet 
be subject to modifications ; that quite possibly 
it has not received its final statements even in 
the glowing orations of Joseph Cook. 

Let us proceed now to examine his theory, 
as set forth in the lecture delivered at the Tre- 
mont Temple, April 16, 1877. The authorized 
report of this lecture contains considerable mat- 
ter that was not delivered on that day : it is, 
we may therefore conclude, not an unpremedi- 
tated utterance, but a carefully elaborated state- 
ment of the doctrine. The lecture of April 23 
extends the discussion, but I do not see that it 
adds any thing to the positions taken in the 
previous discourse. I wish to do Mr. Cook no 
injustice, and I shall therefore reproduce seria- 
tim every one of his twenty-seven propositions, 



10 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

giving due heed to the arguments and illustra- 
tions by which he seeks to establish theoi. 

"1. It is self-evident that a thing cannot be and not be 
at the same time and in the same sense." 

Beyond doubt this is true. Mr. Cook's start- 
ing-point is a long way off from his goal, and 
he takes a good many steps that he might have 
saved himself and the rest of us. 

" 2. It is therefore self-evident, that we cannot be at once 
at peace and at variance with conscience ; 

" 3. That we cannot be at once at peace and at variance 
with the record of our past ; 

" 4. That we cannot be at once at peace and at variance 
with God." 

To all these deductions from the initial axiom 
we shall, no doubt, give our immediate assent. 

" 5. It is self-evident, that, while we continue to exist as 
personalities of the same plan we now exhibit in our natures, 
conscience will be something we cannot escape from." 

If this means that we shall always know that 
there is a difference between right and wrong, 
and that we shall always feel that we ought to 
do the right and shun the wrong, I agree to it. 
If it means that our moral judgments concerning 
our actions are always the same, I deny it. 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMEUT. 11 

Conscience maj^, in the past, have pronounced 
certain actions wrong that it now pronounces 
right. The man who has been converted to 
Protestantism from the Roman Catholic faith 
once thought it wrong to read the Protestant 
Bible, or to receive the sacrament from the hands 
of a Protestant minister. What he once thought 
wrong he now thinks right. We may not escape 
from conscience, but we may escape from many 
of the restraints and many of the obligations 
that conscience has laid upon us. 

"6. It is self-evident that our past is irreveisible." 

Yea, verily ! Hold fast to this truth, for it 
will be needed to steady us in our argument 
when we get a little further on. Mr. Cook 
speaks truly and wisely when he affirms that 
" forever and forever the losses occasioned by 
what ought not to have been will continue," 
and that " there will be regret in the universe 
forever and forever on account of the losses 
sin has occasioned ; " that " some part of that 
shadow will fall on the sea of glass, and will 
not be invisible from the great white throne." 
Nothing that man can do, nothing that God can 
do, can annihilate a fact, or make that to be 
right which once was wrong. The wrong thing 
that you have done cannot be undone, and it 



12 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

cannot by any power human or divine be made 
to be a right thing. 

" 7. It is self-evident that we cannot escape from our 
record." 

By our record I suppose that the lecturer 
must mean our memory of the past. Concern- 
ing this I should not say that it is " self-evident " 
that we cannot permanently forget what has 
been. Still I think it is, on the whole, improb- 
able that we should entirely forget any thing 
that we have known: the facts of mental science 
indicate the permanence of memory, and make 
it seem likely that what has temporarily slipped 
from our recollection may and will return to us 
again ; but this belief rests on probable evidence, 
and it is grossly inaccurate to say that the thing 
is " self-evident." 

" 8 [It is self-evident] that we cannot escape from God." 

This is evident to Mr. Cook, doubtless, as it 
is to me ; but the scientific accuracy of the state- 
ment that it is seZf-evident may be questioned. 
Surely it cannot be if we accept Webster's defi- 
nition of that term. " A self-evident truth," he 
says, is a truth that is evident without proof or 
reasoning ; that produces certainty or clear con- 
viction upon a bare presentation to the mind. 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 13 

That two and three make five, is self-evident. 
Now, the fact that we cannot escape from God 
involves the fact of God's existence; and the 
belief in the existence of God is an inference 
rather than an intuition. I heard one of the 
students at Andover, the other day, recite twen- 
ty-six elaborate propositions set forth by Prof. 
Park merely as preliminary to the proof of the 
existence of God. I do not think that Prof. 
Park is a man who would use twenty-six propo- 
sitions in getting ready to show that a thing is 
true which was " self-evident v before he began, 

" 9. [Tt is self-evident] that harmonization with our 
environment is the indispensable condition of peace of soul; 

" 10. That our environment in this world and the next 
consists unalterably of God, conscience, and our record." 

I do not quite understand Mr. Cook when 
he makes conscience part of our environment. 
Conscience is either the voice of God within 
the soul, or a constituent part of the soul itself. 
If it is the voice of God, then Mr. Cook's state- 
ment is tautological : if it is part of the soul 
itself, then it is no part of the soul's environ- 
ment : you might as well say that the stamen 
of a plant is part of the plant's environment. 

What Mr. Cook is laboring to say when he 
makes use of these rather pedantic expres- 
sions is simply this : that no man can be at 



14 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

peace in his soul who remembers unforgiven sin 
against God. And that is probably true, though 
as we shall see by and by it is a truth that needs 
to be spoken with some qualifications. There 
may be such a peace as the peace of death, into 
which the sinner may fall. 

The next three propositions are scarcely new, 
but they are true beyond question. 

"11. [Tt is self-evident] that we must be free from the 
love of what ought not to be, before we can be at peace 
wjth the moral law which requires what ought to be. 

"12. It is self-evident that conscience produces in us 
a sense of ill-desert whenever we say 4 1 will not/ to the 
divine 'I ought/ 

" 13. That conscience produces in us this sense of ill- 
desert whenever we accurately remember the record of our 
intelligent refusal to say ' I will/ to the divine ' I ought.' " 

Mr. Cook's fourteenth proposition I should 
have been inclined to accept ; but, as I read his 
own exposition of it, I was not quite clear that 
he had not succeeded in disproving the thing 
that he was trying to prove. 

" 14. That no lapse of time lessens this sense of ill- 
desert [occasioned by the remembrance of our refusal to 
obey the moral law] if the memory of such refusal is vivid 
and thoughtful." 

In enforcing this proposition, Mr. Cook recalls 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 15 

«. — 

the assassination of President Lincoln, and asks 
whether the lapse of time has changed our 
opinion " as to the blameworthiness of the 
principal actor in it." Perhaps not; but wheth- 
er it has or no is neither here nor there, so far 
as his proposition is concerned : the only ques- 
tion is whether Wilkes Booth's opinion of the 
transaction has changed. The question con- 
cerning our opinions is wholly irrelevant. The 
illustration does not illustrate. 

The next case supposed by Mr. Cook comes 
nearer to his proposition. " It is a terrible cer- 
tainty that Judas Iscariot, if he ever blamed 
himself once justly, must continue to blame 
himself forever and forever." Well, that, at 
any rate, is the thing to be proved. " There 
is a noose," he proceeds to say, " that a man 
may put about his neck, and tie, which he can- 
not untie. There is irreversibility in the past, 
and the action which ought not to have been 
will always be regarded as such when we viv- 
idly and faithfully remember its character. . . . 
Conscience is so fearfully and wonderfully made, 
that you must forever disapprove what ought 
not to have been." All this is strongly on the 
side of his proposition. But how about this 
which immediately follows? 

11 How evident it is that, under natural law, 
a man may drift on in careless aesthetic ways 



16 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

till he loses the perception of the beautiful ! 
He learns to love that which aesthetically ought 
not to be ; and he blunts his aesthetic sense until 
you say he could, by a long process of culture, 
be brought back perhaps, but never will be, 
, You say his probation is over aesthetically. On 
every conceivable side, except the moral and 
religious, character is subject to probations, and 
attains permanence. But on these sides a whim 
of the luxurious ages forbids you to hear the 
truth which all great and strenuous ages have 
assented ; namely, that probations of course 
exist there, as they do elsewhere. Undeniably 
there are aesthetical probations, phj^sical pro- 
bations, and intellectual probations. But now 
you affirm, you who assert the unity of law, 
that there are no moral probations. Do you 
perceive any self-contradiction in that intellec- 
tual proceeding ? " 

Here in the authorized report of Mr. Cook's 
lecture I find that there was " profound sensa- 
tion " in his audience, and I partly believe it ; 
for it would seem that any good-natured and 
sympathetic audience must have felt a sensation 
not only profound, but also rather painful, as 
it gradually became evident — not to say self- 
evident — that Mr. Cook was in much the same 
predicament with Father Taylor when his nomi- 
native and his verb got hopelessly parted, and 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. ll 

when the good old gentleman suddenly became 
certain of nothing but that lie was bound for 
the kingdom of heaven. 

Mr. Cook's proposition is, if he will suffer us 
to recall it, that no lapse of time lessens our 
sense of ill-desert on account of clearly remem- 
bered transgressions. His argument is, that 
the aesthetic nature of men becomes blunted by 
neglect or misuse of it, until they lose their 
perception of the beautiful ; until they learn to 
admire that which is not admirable, to think 
that beautiful which is not beautiful ; until they 
become fixed in this habit of thinking ; that, just 
as there are aesthetical probations, there are 
moral probations : in other words, as a man may, 
by abusing his aesthetic nature, come to think a 
thing beautiful which once he thought ugly, so 
a man may, by abusing his moral nature, come 
to think a thing right which once he thought 
wrong. 

Xow, this may be true, or may not ; but if it 
is true the proposition which it is intended to 
illustrate is not true. The argument exactly 
contradicts the statement ; and if >ye are to 
accept Mr. Cook's initial postulate, that a thing 
cannot be and not be at the same time and in 
the same sense, we shall be obliged to extin- 
guish either the proposition or its proof. 

My own opinion is that the proof is all right, 



18 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

— the last part of it, I mean, — and that the 
thing to be proved is all wrong. I believe it to 
be true, that the moral nature of man is blunted 
bj r continuance in sin ; that the pain of remem- 
bered transgression is lessened as time goes on ; 
that our perceptions of right and wrong are 
dimmed, and that our power to do the right and 
shun the wrong is lost, by continuance in sin. 
A deep truth is here, to which we shall give 
more attention by and by. 

Mr. Cook's next proposition brings lis face to 
face with one of the fundamental questions of 
theology. 

" 15. It is self-evident, on examination of our experience, 
that conscience, when we keep our eyes open to light, pro- 
duces in us, besides the sense of ill-desert, a feeling that 
something ought to be done to satisfy the rightly resplen- 
dent majesty, and the plainly unconditional and eternal 
authority, of the violated law which says, * I ought.'" 

The principal ideas contained in this proposi- 
tion are these : 1. There is a law (adjectives 
do not add to its force) which says, " I ought." 
That is undeniable. 2. When we refuse to 
obey that law, conscience produces in us a sense 
of ill-desert. That, too, is beyond question. 
8. When we violate that law, conscience pro- 
duces in us a feeling that something ought to be 
done to satisfy it. Let us see about this. 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 19 

The law under consideration is the law that 
says, " I ought." It is " the law of the mind," 
of which Paul speaks more than once, — the 
sense of moral obligation that all men feel, and 
that constrains them to say not only " I ought," 
according to Mr. Cook, but a little more than 
this, — "I ought to do right." Now, when a 
man has done what he believes to be wrong, his 
conscience, which is simply the voice within 
him that utters and enforces the law, " I ought 
to do right," does produce within him a feeling 
of ill-desert. But does conscience say that 
something ought to be done to satisfy this law? 
How satisfy it? The law within me says, "I 
ought to do right," and I have done wrong. 
The past is irreversible ; the law is unchange- 
able. How, then, is it possible that the law 
should be satisfied ? The bad deed cannot be 
changed to make it agree with the good law ; 
the good law cannot be altered to make it ap- 
prove the bad deed : between the righteous law 
and the unrighteous act there is and always will 
be disagreement. The law would have been 
satisfied by obedience, but it can be satisfied 
with nothing short of obedience ; by every act 
of disobedience one of those losses is suffered, 
which, in Mr. Cook's own words, must continue 
forever and forever. 

I object therefore to the statement that con- 



20 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

science demands " satisfaction " for past disobe- 
dience of the law which says, " I ought to do 
right." Conscience is not irrational ; it de- 
mands nothing which is absolutely impossible : 
and it is absolutely impossible that past disobe- 
dience should be changed to obedience. 

But it will be answered, that what conscience 
produces in us is feeling that we ought to be 
punished for past disobedience. The law is 
satisfied, it will be said, when its penalty is 
suffered. No : you cannot satisfy, in that way, 
the law that says, " I ought to do right." No 
amount of suffering that could be inflicted or 
endured would be a full equivalent for disobe- 
dience. Is it all the same thing, as before that 
law, whether I do right, or suffer for doing 
wrong? Is the law equally satisfied with the 
obedience of those who obey, and the punish- 
ment of those who disobey ? 

Take this question out of the realm of ab- 
stractions. The law of which we are talking 
is the law of God. " I ought to do right," is 
simply the response of the human nature to the 
voice out of heaven which says, " Thou oughtest 
to do right." And is God satisfied when men 
suffer the penalty of this violated law ? Is it 
all one to him, whether men do right, or wheth- 
er they refuse to do right and take the conse- 
quences ? Leaving out of the account, if you 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT 21 

can, his infinite compassion, is his ethical nature 
— the principle of righteousness in him — 
equally satisfied with the obedience of the good 
and the suffering of the evil ? These questions 
are answered by asking them. We know, if we 
know any thing of God, that no equivalents of 
suffering will ever compensate him for the sins 
of his creatures. 

Let us be done, therefore, with talking about 
satisfying the law of righteousness. In a loose 
popular sense, it may be said that human laws 
are " satisfied" when the penalty annexed to 
them is inflicted. All that is meant by that 
phrase is that the state has reached the limit 
which it has assigned to itself in punishing the 
offence. But this analogy does not at all help 
us in comprehending the obligations of men to 
the law that is spiritual, — the eternal law of 
right. That law is not of such a nature that it 
can be satisfied in this way. That law, when it 
has once been disobeyed, cannot be satisfied by 
man nor by God, neither in this life nor in the 
life to come. That is " the shadow that will 
rest on the sea of glass for ever and ever." 

But it will be said that conscience does pro- 
duce in us the feeling that punishment is de- 
served, and ought to be inflicted. That is true; 
but the feeling that I deserve punishment is 
very different from the feeling that something 



22 JOSEPH COOK BE VIE WED. 

must be done to satisfy the law. It is not a 
governmental feeling : it is a personal feeling. 
The criminal whose moral nature is not wholly 
perverted feels instinctively that he is to blame, 
and that he ought to be punished. If his con- 
science forces him, as conscience sometimes 
does, to come and give himself up to the officers 
of the law, it is not because he feels that the 
law ought to be vindicated: it is because he 
feels that he, an evil-doer, ought to suffer for his 
crime. The political philosopher who hears of 
the occurrence, and the judge who administers 
the sentence, may argue that the criminal ought 
to be punished for the protection of the state ; 
but that is not the instinctive feeling of the 
criminal himself. He does not think of the 
honor that is due to the government, but of 
the retribution that is due to him as a malefac- 
tor. 

And this is precisely the feeling that arises in 
the human soul, on the remembrance of every 
violation of the moral law. The transgressor 
feels that he has done wrong, and that he ought 
to be punished. 

"16. It is self-evident on examination of personal and 
general experience, that in the absence of satisfaction [and 
satisfaction is always absent] conscience forebodes punish- 
ment." 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 23 

"It is self-evident, on examination of per- 
sonal and general experience." What sort of 
" science " is this ? Nothing can be seZf-evident, 
that is only evident on examination of " personal 
and general experience," that a man does not 
know until he has read history. It is like Mr. 
John Phoenix's saying that the autograph of a 
certain man was undoubtedly genuine, as it was 
written by one of his most intimate friends. 
The autograph of the intuition is not written by 
" personal and general experience." I dwell 
upon this because it is a vice of Mr. Cook's 
method. He wants to make it appear that this 
argument of his is in the nature of a mathemat- 
ical demonstration, and therefore he calls many 
things axioms which are not axioms at all. Such 
a misuse of language vitiates a great part of his 
reasoning. 

All that can be saved from the wreck of this 
proposition is the last three words, " conscience 
forebodes punishment." I know that this is 
true so far as I am concerned; and, while noth- 
ing that takes place in other men's minds can 
be "self-evident" to me, I have no doubt that 
it is true of other men. • 

The next five propositions need not detain us 
long. 

"17. That it [conscience] forebodes this [punishment] 
with such force and pertinacity that this action of con- 



24 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED, 

science, according to the confession of all great literature 
and philosophy, makes cowards of us all. 

" 18. That it forebodes punishment not only in this life, 
but in time to come beyond death. 

" 19. This foreboding has done as much work in the 
history of religion as any other instinct, and thus has 
proved its strength." 

To all these statements no word of dissent 
need be interposed. The meaning of this in- 
stinctive expectation of punishment in this life 
and in the life beyond will be plainer to us by 
and by : but the fact is one that no sound phi- 
losophy will attempt to deny. 

" 20. Foreboding does not cease when we become free 
from the love of sin. 

" 21. It is self-evident, therefore, that the absence of the 
love of sin in the present does not bring us to peace when 
we vividly and thoughtfully recall our record of sin in the 
past, and allow our native instincts free course." 

To these statements objection will be made. 
" Why," it will be asked, " should the fear of 
punishment continue when we have ceased from 
sinning ? " Whether it should continue or not, 
it does: that is certain. And we can see some 
reasons why it does ; for the fact that we are 
doing right in the present does not alter the fact 
that we did wrong in the past, does not change 
the fact of our blameworthiness for that wrong- 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 25 

doing, does not obliterate our knowledge of the 
fact that we deserve punishment for that wrong- 
doing. Mr. Cook is quite right about this. It 
is a shallow philosophy which supposes that 
present obedience makes amends for past dis- 
obedience, or silences the voice of conscience 
that tells of past guilt and forebodes punish- 
ment. If that voice is ever to be quieted, it 
must be done by something else besides our own 
efforts at reformation. How, then, is it done? 
Let us hear Mr. Cook tell us truly, in the first 
place, how it is not done. 

u 22. It is self-evident that personal ill-desert cannot be 
removed from person to person." 

That is a sound proposition, and here is the 
argument by which it is supported : — 

" What ! sin not taken off us, and put upon 
our Lord ? Our guilt not borne by our Saviour? 
No : not in the sense ill which you understand 
guilt. Blameworthiness is not transferred from 
us to him, and cannot be. We know that our 
Lord had no sin, and that there can be no taking 
off personal ill-desert from one personality, and 
putting it upon another. . . . Our Lord is no 
murderer, no perjurer. There is no divergence 
of theological opinion from self-evident truth, 
when self-evident truth declares that personal 



26 Joseph cook re viewed. 

demerit is not transferable from personality to 
personality. . . . We have no doctrine of the 
atonement which declares that personal demerit 
is laid upon our Lord, or that, in the strict sense 
of the word, he suffered punishment, that is, 
pain inflicted for personal blameworthiness. 
He was an innocent being, as he always will be t 
and never did, can, or will suffer punishment in 
the strict sense of that word." 

That is a fair representation of one phase of 
orthodoxy ; but Mr. Cook is not justified in 
leaving it to be inferred that orthodoxy has no 
other phase. When he saj r s, as he does else- 
where, that " evangelical scholarship abhors " 
the idea " that God punishes by substitution," 
and the idea " that Christ, though innocent, 
was punished," he is very far from telling the 
whole truth. Dr. Charles Hodge of Princeton 
says that Christ saves his people " by bearing 
the penalty of the law in their stead." That 
' Christ's sufferings were penal, were judicially 
inflicted in satisfaction of justice ; " that " he 
suffered the penalty of the law ; " that " his 
sufferings were neither calamities, nor chastise- 
ments designed for his own benefit, nor merely 
dogmatic or symbolical or exemplary," — Dr. 
Hodge distinctly teaches. 1 His son Prof. A. A. 
Hodge, of Allegheny, who has just been called 

1 Hodge's Theology, vol. ii. p. 474. 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 27 

to succeed his father at Princeton, is even more 
explicit. He affirms that Christ did suffer " the 
very penalty of the law, because he suffered in 
our stead ; our sins were punished in strict rigor 
of justice in him." Mr. Cook says, as we shall 
presently see, that the sufferings of Christ were 
not a penality, but the substitute for a pen- 
alty. Prof. Hodge says that this phrase is 
absurd :" sin is either punished, or it is not 
punished," he says ; there is no such thing as a 
substitute for punishment. These men are not 
alone, as Mr. Cook ought to know. The dogma 
that they teach is the very dogma of the Presby- 
terian standards ; and there are few if any 
Presbyterian or Dutch Reformed theological 
seminaries in the country where it is not dili- 
gently taught. Mr. Cook denounces the Lib- 
erals of Boston for representing " evangelical 
scholarship " as teaching that " God punishes 
by substitution," and that " Christ, an innocent 
being, was punished ; " and his audience receives 
his denunciation with " great applause " ! 
" The scientific method " would seem to have 
been slightly strained in this proceeding. 

Let us, however, admit that this statement 
of his concerning the sufferings of Chyist is true, 
as far as it goes, even though all " evangelical 
scholarship " should deny it. " Christ never 
did, can, or will suffer punishment in the strict 



28 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

sense of that word." " Personal ill-clesert can- 
not be removed from person to person." That, 
at any rate, ought to be self-evident. I know, 
if I know any thing, that my sins cannot be 
imputed or charged over to another person, or 
assumed by another person ; that no other per- 
son can be considered guilty on account of what 
I have clone, ov he punished in my stead. But 
now Mr. Cook makes a distinction which brings 
his theory of the atonement before us : " That 
word 'guilt' is a fog, unless you remember that 
behind it lie two meanings. Guilt signifies, 
first, personal blameworthiness ; second, obliga- 
tion to render satisfaction to violated law. In 
the former sense, guilt cannot be transferred 
from person to person ; in the latter, it can be." 
And thus we come to the propositions in which 
the doctrine, as he understands it, is set forth. 

" 23. Guilt in the second sense, or obligation to satisfy 
the demands of a violated law, may be removed when the 
Author of the law substitutes his own voluntary sacrificial 
chastisement for our punishment. 

" 24. When such a substitution is made, the highest pos- 
sible motives to loyalty to that Ruler are brought to bear 
upon the rebellious subject. 

" 25. If any great arrangement on this principle has been 
made by the Father, Redeemer, and Sanctifier of the uni- 
verse, that arrangement meets with exactness the deepest 
wants of man. It is the highest possible dissuasive from 
the love of sin ; it is the only possible deliverance from the 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 29 

guilt of sin, in the sense, not of personal blameworthiness, 
but of obligation to satisfy the violated law which says, ' I 
ought.' 

" 26. Such a great arrangement may therefore, with 
scientific exactness, be known to be needed, and so needed 
as to be called properly the desire of all nations. 

" 27. The atonement which reason can prove is needed, 
revelation declares has been made." 

These are the concluding propositions of Mr. 
Cook's analysis. Let us see now what are the 
principles on which his theory rests. The key 
of the whole position is in these sentences : 
" Guilt in the sense of blameworthiness cannot 
be transferred from person to person : guilt in 
the sense of obligation to satisfy the demands 
of violated law can be transferred from person 
to person." 

Now, in the face of all this, I affirm that 
guilt in neither of these senses can be trans- 
ferred. I say that you can no more transfer 
punishableness than 3^011 can transfer blame- 
worthiness ; that, if there be any such thing as 
obligation to satisfy the law which says, " I 
ought," that obligation must rest on him who 
has violated the law, and can no more bp trans- 
ferred to anybody else than down can be up, or 
than wrong can be right. The absolute person- 
ality of moral obligation in every phase of it ; 
the absolute impossibility of shirking it, or being 
relieved of it, or transferring it ; the absolute 



30 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

certainty that no " arrangement " has been 
made, or can be made, in heaven or on earth, 
whereby any part of my moral obligation can 
be transferred to or assumed by any other 
being, human or divine, — I take to be the very 
foundation-stones of ethical science. Others 
may suffer on account of my sins ; others may 
voluntarily take upon themselves suffering in 
seeking to save me from my sins ; in this man- 
ner Christ does suffer for me : but to affirm 
that any part of my obligation to satisf\ r the 
law which says, " I ought," can be transferred 
to any other being, is to contradict one of the 
first principles of morality. 

How, pray, can the law which says, " I 
ought," be satisfied? Only by obedience, as 
we have seen. Past disobedience cannot be 
changed into obedience by any transfer. The 
past is irreversible. The law within me says, 
" I ought to do right ; " and I have done wrong. 
That fact cannot be altered. But there is 
something more. The feeling within me says, 
" I ought to be punished for my wrong-doing." 
My feeling is not that somebody ought to suffer, 
but that I ought to suffer. That is a natural 
and a just feeling. But the instinct which 
says, " I ought to suffer," cannot be satisfied 
with inflicting suffering on somebody else. 

I feel that I ought to suffer if I have violated 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 31 

the law which says, " I ought to do right ; " but 
my suffering by no means satisfies the law. 
How, then, can it be satisfied, or how can peace 
be restored to my soul, by the suffering of one 
who ought not to suffer ? 

The principles here enunciated cannot be 
proved. They can only be stated. To my mind 
they are axioms. It seems to me that they 
ought to be axioms to every person who has a 
conscience. I cannot doubt that to every good 
man they will be plain some day, — in the next 
world if not in this. 

Mr, Cook says that obligation to satisfy the 
demands of a violated law may be removed by 
the author of the law. But who is the author 
of the law that says, " I ought to do right " ? 
Do you say that it is God ? Stop and think. 
Is not that law eternal? Is it not the very 
condition of moral existence ? Is not God him- 
self under obligation to that law, just as really 
as you and I are under obligation to it ? Is 
what he does right because he does it, or does 
he do what he does because it is right? There 
are some things that God cannot do. He 
cannot make two and two five, and he can- 
not remove from any being in the universe a 
particle of the obligation that the law of right 
imposes. I do not mean that there is any 
power above God to enforce this law upon him, 



32 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

but rather that the ideal law of right rules his 
thought so perfectly that he could not set it 
aside without denying himself. 

You say that God is just : does not that 
imply that there is an ideal law of justice with 
which you compare his judgments ? You say 
that God's acts are right : does not that mean 
that there is an ideal law of ri^ht to which his 
conduct conforms ? 

Well, then, we may take issue with Mr. Cook 
right here, and reverently deny that God can 
remove any obligation that the eternal law of 
right imposes. That is only another way of 
saying that God can neither do nor sanction 
wrong. God is not in any such sense the 
author of the eternal law of right (and this is 
the only law, let it be observed, of which Mr. 
Cook has spoken), that he can remove any por- 
tion of the obligations of that law. 

But Mr. Cook says that God has done this 
very thing. How ? By " substituting his own 
voluntary sacrificial chastisement for our pun- 
ishment." No, that cannot be : the chastise- 
ment of an innocent being, whether divine or 
human, cannot be substituted for the punish- 
ment of a guiltjr one. That is not just ; that is 
not right ; and therefore, because God is both 
just and righteous, he will do nothing of the 
kind. It is contrary to the nature of things ; it 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 33 

is contrary to the nature of God ; and therefore 
it cannot be. 

Nevertheless Mr. Cook thinks that he has 
found, in a transaction that occurred some years 
ago in Boston, an analogy that shows how the 
punishment of one may be removed by substi- 
tuting for it the voluntary sacrificial chastise- 
ment of another. I do him no injustice when 
I say that this illustration is the corner-stone of 
his system. He has repeated it twice in Boston 
within a few weeks, and he most strenuously 
asserts that it contains the principle of the 
atonement. Let us have the illustration in Mr. 
Cook's own words : — 

" On the slope of Beacon Hill a New-England 
author, who ought always to be named side by 
side with Pestalozzi, once made it a rule that 
if a pupil violated its {sic) regulations the master 
should substitute his own voluntary sacrificial 
chastisement for that pupil's punishment." 

We may perhaps be permitted to doubt 
whether this was the exact language of the rule. 
Mr. Alcott sometimes uses large words, but it 
is not likely that he ever said any thing to his 
pupils about " substituting his own voluntary 
sacrificial chastisement for their punishment." 
What he said was, I presume, something like 
this: " Boys, if you whisper, I shall not whip 
you, but I shall make you whip me." 



34 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

" Bronson Alcott will allow me to say here 
and now in his presence, that he has told me 
that this one regulation almost Christianized his 
school. The pupils were quite young, and for 
that reason the measure was effective among 
them. He was no dreamer : he would never 
have adopted this measure except with the sen- 
sitive. Nevertheless the operation of these un- 
tutored, hardly unfolded, and therefore unstained 
hearts, indicated what man is. ' One day,' 
says Bronson Alcott, ' I called up before me a 
pupil eight or ten years of age, who had violat- 
ed an important regulation of the school. All 
the pupils were looking on, and they knew 
what the rule of the school was. I put the 
ruler into the hand of that offending pupil ; I 
extended my hand ; I told him to strike. The 
instant the boy saw my extended hand, and 
heard my command to strike, I saw a struggle 
begin in his face. A new light sprang up in his 
countenance ; a new set of shuttles seemed to 
be weaving a new nature within him. I kept 
my hand extended, and the school was in tears. 
I constantly watched his face, and he seemed in 
a bath of fire which was giving him a new 
nature. He had a different mood toward the 
school and toward the violated law. The bo}^ 
seemed transformed by the idea that I should 
t^ke chastisement in place of his punishment. 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 35 

He went back to his seat, and ever after was 
one of the most docile of all the pupils in that 
school, although he had been at first one of the 
rudest.' " 

That is the story. Now for Mr. Cook's appli- 
cation of it. After a somewhat eloquent com- 
mentary upon the transaction, he proceeds, as 
he sa} r s, to "summarize the truths contained in 
this discussion, by asserting, in the name of 
the axioms of the nature of things, that it is 
clear : — 

" 1. That the master of that school was not 
guilty." 

No, he was not. Go on. 

" 2. That he suffered, in the strict sense, not 
punishment, but chastisement." 

He suffered neither ; but let us wait and see. 

" 3. That he had power to remove from the 
pupil the obligation to satisfy the law of the 
school." 

What was the law of the school ? For sub- 
stance, I suppose it must have been, " Do right." 
What the particular regulations may have been, 
I do not know ; but if the command to do right 
was not the substance of them, they were not 
binding upon the pupils, and the obligation " to 
satisfy them " could not be removed, because 
there could not have been any such obligation. 
If the command to do right was the substance 



36 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

of them, then the obligation " to satisfy them " 
could not have been removed by Mr. Alcott nor 
airy one else. But of course Mr. Cook means 
that the teacher had the power to remove from 
the pupil the punishment that was due to him. 
Power he might have had: whether he had the 
right to remove it, is not so clear. But we will 
not dispute about that. Grant that he had the 
power to remove the punishment : did he remove 
it? Most certainly he did not ; but inflicted it, 
vigorously, mercilessly, thoroughly, upon the pupil. 
V^hat was the punishment threatened against 
every violator of the law of this school? It 
was that he should whip the master. To the 
pupils the master said, "If you break these 
laws, I shall punish you by compelling you to 
chastise me." Mr. Cook says that these were 
young, delicately-nurtured, sensitive children. 
He gives us Mr. Alcott's word that no such 
measure would have been tried with children 
who were not peculiarly sensitive. He knew 
that he could punish them more effectually by 
making them chastise him, than b}^ inflicting 
physical suffering upon them. He knew that 
their sensibilities were more easily hurt than 
the palms of their hands ; that they would 
rather be whipped themselves than to whip 
their teacher. And therefore his punishment 
was so contrived as to strike them in the tender- 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 37 

est part of their nature, and thus to act as the 
strongest possible dissuasive from transgression. 
Many of us know children on whom such a 
method of discipline would work in just this 
way ; and some of us know children on whom 
it would not work at all. But, beyond a doubt, 
this was the reason of the measure ; and, if we 
may believe the story, its wisdom was in this 
case justified. 

Let us hear the rest of Mr. Cook's exposi- 
tion : — 

" 4. That after he [Alcott] had substituted 
voluntary sacrificial chastisement on the part 
of the master for the punishment due to the 
pupil, you cannot demand a second time pun- 
ishment from that pupil." 

But there was no substitution. The law of 
the school was enforced ; the penalty threat- 
ened against the transgressor was literally and 
exactly visited upon him : he was made to 
strike his master, and, as his master expected, 
it hurt him so badly to do it that he took care 
never to be made to do it again. That was the 
punishment due him ; and the reason why he 
could not be punished again was, not that some- 
thing had been substituted for his punishment, 
but simply that the punishment had been in- 
flicted. The amazing confusion with which 
this argument is covered can only arise from 



38 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

that coarse materialistic conception of punish- 
ment which identifies it with physical suffering ; 
with the sting of a ferule in the open palm, or 
the torturing flames of a lake of fire and brim- 
stone. Mr. Cook goes on to say, — 

" 5. That the pupil's peace before the law of 
the school is the result not of his own work, 
but of the master's work ; and not of the mas- 
ter's moral influence and general character 
merely, but of his substitution of chastisement 
for punishment." 

This proposition is repeated in different 
phraseology once or twice more, but it is hardly 
worth while to follow the analysis further. 
" The pupil's peace before the law of the 
school," so far as this transgression was con- 
cerned, resulted from the fact that he had suf- 
fered its penalty ; his subsequent peace was the 
result of his obedience. 

Mr. Cook says that " in the arc of this little 
example are involved principles that sweep the 
whole curve of the atonement," because " law 
is the same everywhere." " I have a perfect 
right," he says (in explaining the work of 
Christ), " to stand on this example of Bronson 
Alcott's school." 

Well", if this transaction gives us the princi- 
ple of the atonement, we can say nothing but 
this : that the penalties of God's law are inflict- 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 39 

ed, to the very letter, upon all transgressors, 
and that there is no such thing as legal or for- 
ensic substitution. Surely there was none here. 

Let us draw out now clearly the points of 
correspondence between this illustration, and 
the doctrine that it is intended to illustrate. 

The penalty of the law of Bronson Alcott's 
school was thus declared : " If any boy disobey, 
he shall be compelled to flog the master." 

The penalty of the law of God's government 
is thus declared : " The soul that sinneth, IT 
shall die. The righteousness of the righteous 
shall be upon Aim, and the wickedness of the 
wicked shall be upon HIM," — not in any wise 
upon his Maker. 

In Bronson Alcott's school, the penalty of the 
law was rigorously inflicted upon the trans- 
gressor. 

In God's government, as Mr. Cook tells us, 
the penalty of the law is removed from the 
transgressor, and " the voluntary sacrificial chas- 
tisement" of the ruler is substituted for it. 

The two cases, instead of being parallel, are, 
as anybody can see, exactly at right angles. 

I do not care to follow Mr. Cook any further. 
He has several lectures on this subject that I 
have not examined here, but I do not see that 
they add any thing to his argument. I think I 
have made it plain that his main propositions 



40 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

contradict the first principles of morality, and 
that the example in which, as he says, the prin- 
ciple of the atonement is contained, is openly at 
war with his theory. 

To show that Mr. Cook's philosophy is inade- 
quate, is one thing : to substitute for it an 
explanation of the work of Christ, which shall 
consist with reason and with conscience, is quite 
another thing. But no critic has a right to 
destroy without trying to rebuild. 

Some things must be assumed, to begin with. 
In the outline of a theory here submitted, it is 
assumed that there is one God, that Jesus 
Christ is God, and that our moral intuitions are 
to be trusted. I do not say that these postu- 
lates are axioms ; but this argument treats them 
as truths accepted by those to whom it is ad- 
dressed. 

The first question we encounter is, What is 
God's moral law? 

In its simplest statement it is the command 
to do right. To this command the conscience 
responds, "I ought to do right." But this com- 
mand needs to be explained, and Christ has per- 
fectly explained it. To do right is to love God 
with all the heart, and our neighbors as ourselves. 

The result of obedience to this law is life. 
" This do, and thou shalt live," the Saviour said. 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT, 41 

But what kind of life is meant? physical life, 
or spiritual life? Plainly, spiritual life. The 
body lives by obedience to physical law: the 
spirit lives by obedience to spiritual law. 

The continuance of the life of every thing 
that lives is the result of obedience to the law 
of its existence. The law of plant-life re- 
quires that light, warmth, moisture, and certain 
chemical elements be supplied to the plant. If 
that law is obeyed, the life of the plant is con- 
tinued. The law of man's spiritual nature re- 
quires that it be nourished by loving God with 
all the heart, and by loving our neighbors as 
ourselves. While that law is obeyed, spiritual 
life continues. This is not an arbitrary, but a 
natural result. God does not make a bargain with 
the plant, saying, " If you will secure for your- 
self light and w r armth and moisture and the 
chemical elements that you need, I will continue 
your existence :" the continuance of the plant's 
existence is the natural result of the supply to 
the plant of the conditions of its life. Neither 
does God make a bargain with man, saying, 
" If you will love me with all the heart, and 
your neighbor as yourself, I will give to you 
spiritual life." The spiritual life is the natural 
result of obedience to the soul's law. It is not 
the price of a commercial arrangement, or the 
reward of a judicial decree: it is the result of 



42 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

the working of natural laws. The soul has a 
nature, as well as the plant, and that nature 
has its laws ; and the result of obedience to 
those laws is life in the soul, as well as in the 
plant. 

They who love God with all the heart are 
brought into such relations with him that his 
life is imparted to them, and the principles, 
motives, judgments, affections, that hold sway 
in the divine nature, are incorporated into the 
human nature. By sympathetic communion 
with any exalted human spirit, we are made 
partakers, to some degree, of the qualities which 
belong to that spirit. What is true of our fel- 
lowship "with men is true in a far higher sense of 
our fellowship with God. To the fact of this 
mystic union between God and man, the writers 
of both Testaments bear abundant witness. It 
is hardly worth while to multiply proof-texts. 
The whole Gospel of John might almost be 
called a monograph on this transcendent theme. 
The soul that obeys the law of its own nature is 
thus united with God, and lives by union with 
him, even as the branch lives by its union with 
the vine. And the spiritual life that the soul 
receives by its union with God is eternal life. 
Since it lives in God, it will live while God lives. 
It will be a " partaker of the divine nature ; " 
and therefore holiness, health, and peace will be 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 43 

its eternal portion. Thus it appears that eternal 
life is not the commercial equivalent nor the 
judicial reward of obedience to the law of the 
soul, but the natural and inevitable result of 
obedience under the divine constitution. 

But what is the consequence of disobedience 
to this law ? The answer immediately suggests 
itself. If life be the fruit of obedience, death 
must be the fruit of disobedience. Such is the 
announcement of Scripture, " The soul that sin- 
neth, it shall die" 

But death, too, is a word of many significa- 
tions. What does it signify in this connection ? 
Is it physical death that is annexed to the law 
as its penalty ? 

Physical death is the consequence of the 
violation of physical, not spiritual laws. It is 
true that the body and the spirit are so closely 
related, that the vigor of the body is promoted 
b}^ the peace of the spirit. It is true that, when 
the health of the spirit is impaired, the body 
always suffers with it. But this is only a sec- 
ondary and indirect result. I do not suppose 
that perfect obedience to spiritual law would 
result in physical immortality. 

The death that is the consequence of disobe- 
dience to spiritual law must be spiritual death. 
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. 

As by loving God the spiritual^ nature is 



44 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

nourished, so by refusing to love him it fam- 
ishes. As the branch must wither when it is 
severed from the vine, so the soul must decay 
when it is cut off from the source of its life. 
As darkness follows when light is withdrawn, so 
spiritual death must supervene when spiritual 
life ceases. It is not a judicial infliction : it is 
a natural result. 

But what are the symptoms by which the 
presence of spiritual death is known ? In physi- 
cal death there is not a cessation of activity, but 
a change of activity. In the dead body the 
forces of nature are at work, not less industri- 
ously than in the living body, but their prod- 
ucts in the two cases are altogether dissimilar. 
In the one case they are compacting and 
strengthening the frame : in the other case 
they are destroying it. Life builds up : death 
pulls down what life has built. 

The same thing is true of the spiritual nature. 
While the soul lives by obedience to its law, 
all its powers work together harmoniously, 
building up a perfect character. There is no 
schism in the souL The faculties that ought 
to rule, rule. The faculties that ought to serve, 
serve. The soul is growing daily in grace and 
manliness and vigor. But when the law is dis- 
obeyed, and death ensues, a process very like 
that of the dissolution of the body begins. 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 45 

There is discord and confusion among the fac- 
ulties. The malignant passions and the selfish 
desires and the animal cravings usurp the places 
that belong to reason and conscience and the 
pure affections. The nature is completely in- 
verted. The powers that ought to rule are 
made to serve ; and those that ought to serve 
are allowed to rule. The whole nature is thus 
thrown into disorder. The process going on 
within is demolition. 

But what is this spiritual nature of which we 
are speaking? I include under the term, the 
nobler faculties of the soul ; its natural love of 
truth and beauty and goodness ; its instinctive 
reverence and trust and generous affection ; its 
native courage and honor and magnanimity. 
All men do, by nature, possess such qualities as 
these ; and it is because they possess these 
qualities, that they are said to be made in the 
image of God. This is that part of the human 
nature by which we are brought into communion 
with the divine being. This is that part of the 
human nature which is enlarged and invigorated 
by obedience of the soul's law, — by loving God 
and men. 

But by disobedience of the soul's law, these 
faculties are injured and finally destroyed. 
Every act of sin helps to dull the moral sense, 
to impair the moral judgment, to dethrone the 



46 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

reason, and to paralyze the nobler affections. 
Every violation of the law of love to God and 
man inflicts upon this part of the nature a grave 
injury. Every lie that a man tells weakens his 
love of the truth, and makes the next lie easier. 
Every act of cruelty hardens his heart, and ren- 
ders him less sensitive to the sufferings of others. 
Every outbreak of anger makes it harder for 
him to restrain his resentments. Every act and 
every harbored thought of impurity taints the 
very fountains of his life. Every deed of dis- 
honesty helps to fix him in the habit of dishon- 
esty. All sin is thus seen to propagate itself. 
Evil deeds are evil seeds that spring up before 
many days, and bear fruit in the life, some 
thirty, some sixty, some an hundred fold. The 
result of sin is not only suffering, but also sin. 
" Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also 
reap." He who sows sin reaps sin. The seed 
springs up quickly, grows rapidly, multiplies at 
a fearful rate, and brings forth in the life a rank 
and terrible harvest. 

Such a process of moral deterioration always 
goes on in the life of him who habitually dis- 
obeys the law of God. When it has gone on 
long enough, the moral sense will be completely 
gone ; the love of truth and goodness and 
beauty will be supplanted by selfishness and 
malignity; reverence will give place to scepti- 



THEORIES OF TEE ATONEMENT. 47 

cism, affection to cynical contempt. When this 
process once begins, it will go on without inter- 
ruption to the bitter and dreadful end, unless 
some supernatural and new creative agency 
come in to arrest it. This is not a remedial, 
but a destructive process. It is spiritual decay, 
ending in death. The soul that sinneth, it shall 
not be purified by sinning : it shall die. The 
soul is disobeying its organic law ; and for every 
existence, whether spiritual or physical, the pen- 
alty of disobedience to its organic law is death. 

Of course the moral deterioration which comes 
upon the soul as the natural consequence of 
disobedience is not unaccompanied by suffering. 
In its earlier stages, at least, this decay is not 
painless. To have known the right, and yet 
to have refused to do it ; to have lost the con- 
sciousness of integrity, and gained the conscious- 
ness of degradation and helplessness, — all this 
fills the soul at times with unutterable distress. 
" The way of the transgressor is hard," what- 
ever his end may be. 

The penalty of God's law is not, as some 
people coarsely conceive, mere physical pain or 
temporal calamity. Some persons who believe 
that sin is punished in this life point, for proof 
of their theory, to the afflictions and losses 
that evil-doers suffer. But these providential 
sufferings are not, as any one can see, distributed 



48 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

by any rule of merit. Many bad men prosper 
outwardly ; many good men are overwhelmed 
with disasters. No one has a right to say that 
the misfortunes that overtake a man are the 
penalties of his evil-doing. The real penalty 
of sin is not temporal distress : it is spiritual 
death. As sin is in its essence a spiritual fact, 
so the punishment of sin must be in its essence 
a spiritual fact. The death that is the conse- 
quence of sin is the decay and final ruin of the 
spiritual nature. 

We have noted now the effect upon the indi- 
vidual, of disobedience to the perfect law ; but 
another element enters into the problem. As 
obedience to the first commandment of the law, 
that bids us love God with all the heart, would 
result in building up in the soul a perfect char- 
acter, so obedience to the second command, that 
bids us love our neighbors as ourselves, would 
result in building up in the world a perfect so- 
ciety. 

As disobedience to the first command of 
Christ produces in the soul mutiny and conflict 
among its faculties, so disobedience to the second 
command results in strife and disorder among 
men. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self," is the organic law of a perfect society. 
Where that law is disobeyed there is confusion 
and every evil work ; and therefore every indi- 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 49 

vidual sinner must suffer not only the misery 
resulting from his own distempers and corrup- 
tions, but also that which accrues to him as 
being an integral part of a fallen society. 

It will not be denied that the law which 
requires us to love God with all the heart, 
and our neighbors as ourselves, is, and by the 
great majority of men always has been, habit- 
ually disobeyed. And we are often told that 
the penalty of this law cannot be remitted 
without weakening the government of God ; 
that God has said, " The soul that sinneth, it 
shall die," and that God must not break his 
word ; that therefore by and by, after death 
and in eternity, the penalty of the law will be 
executed upon all transgressors who have not 
accepted of Christ as their substitute. Is this 
true ? No, it is not true, because it is not half 
the truth. It is not true, that by and by after 
death, in eternity, the penalty of the law will 
begin to be executed upon impenitent trans- 
gressors. The penalty of the law begins to be 
executed upon every transgressor at the very 
moment of his sin. " To be carnafly-ininded 
is death," — not will be death by and by. That 
death which is the penalty of the law ; that 
death which is the portion of all that are car- 
nally minded ; which reveals itself in the degra- 
dation of the individual, in his gradual loss of 



50 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

moral principle, in the weakening of those 
instincts within him that approve whatever 
things are pure and lovely and of good report, 
in the growth of his selfish desires and his ani- 
mal cravings and his malignant passions, and in 
the torments with which they fill his soul ; the 
death that also exhibits itself in the mischiefs 
that abound in society, in the envyings and 
jealousies, the strifes and the wars, the robberies 
and the debaucheries, the bitterness and woe 
under which the whole creation groaneth and 
travaileth together, — this tremendous fact of 
spiritual death is not, alas ! any thing to be 
waited for. It is here ; it is all about us : we 
have felt its ravages in our own souls ; we 
have seen the corruption and devastation with 
which it is filling society. The retributions of 
God's law are falling on every side, thicker 
and more deadly than the iron storm that beats 
against the battlements at Kars, or ploughs the 
banks of the beautiful blue Danube. 

The court of God is not adjourned until some 
unknown future day : he sitteth now upon the 
circle of the heavens ; the unchangeable laws 
of the human soul are his swift ministers and 
executioners, and the penalties of his law begin 
to be visited upon every sinner at the moment 
of his transgression. They were never on be- 
half of any man remitted, and they never will 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 5 1 

be. What worse hell does any righteous soul 
crave than that which sin makes in the heart of 
every sinner, and in the society where iniquity 
is free to do its deadly work ? And when it is 
seen that this woe and degradation must, in the 
nature of things, go on propagating themselves 
by their own law of increase, does any one need 
to fear that God's law will be dishonored 
through any laxity of administration ? 

When the fact is once comprehended, that 
God's law is spiritual, that its penalty is spirit- 
ual death, and that the relation between sin and 
its penalty is the relation of cause and effect, 
many things become plain. It begins to be 
clear, for one thing, that all talk about transfer- 
ring penalty or substituting something else for 
penalty is nonsense. Nothing can be substi- 
tuted for the curse that falls upon the soul of 
a man who tells a lie. 

The fact of retribution we have now fully 
considered, as it affects the character of the in- 
dividual and the condition of society. Let us 
now note a little more narrowly the effect of 
the operation of this law upon the* feelings of 
the individual. How does this process through 
which the soul passes after disobedience report 
itself in consciousness ? 

Of course there is, to begin with, a sense of 
ill-desert and a feeling of shame. The man who 



52 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

does a wrong act is degraded in his own eyes. 
The man who lives a life of disobedience to 
God's law feels guilty. 

There is also a feeling that punishment is 
deserved, and a vague dread of coming retribu- 
tion. What is the meaning of this feeling ? 
Punishment is inflicted, as we have seen ; why, 
then, is it dreaded ? The answer is, that the 
dread is simply the reverberation in man's con- 
sciousness of that note of doom which is all 
the while sounding through God's universe as a 
warning to every evil-doer. The conscience 
which says, " I ought now to do right," does not 
say, " I ought by and by to suffer because I 
have done wrong: " it says, "I ought to suffer 
now, and doubtless I shall continue to suffer, 
because the thing that is wrong will be wrong 
for ever and ever." The moral sense does not 
bear witness to any different kind of punish- 
ment beyond the veil, from that which we here 
endure because of sin : it only bears witness 
that this will continue and probably increase in 
the future ; that the bad mind will make for it- 
self a bad element, and dwell in misery on the 
other side of the grave as surely as on this side. 
Faith and obedience give us the substance of the 
things we hope for, — the substance of heaven. 
Unbelief and disobedience give us the substance 
of the things we dread, — the substance of hell. 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 53 

Nevertheless the good man hopes for much that 
he does not see, and the evil man dreads a 
future that he knows is full of increasing woe. 

But there is still another feeling, most central 
and troublesome of all, that takes up its abode 
in the heart of the transgressor, and will not be 
driven forth. That is the feeling that God is 
angry with him. In the place of that glad con- 
fidence with which the soul ought to approach 
the heavenly Father, there is cold suspicion and 
alienation. We are always inclined to hate and 
suspect, not only those who have wronged us, 
but especially those whom we have wronged. 
It is almost impossible for us to believe that one 
whom we have deeply injured does not cherish 
resentment toward us. And this is precisely 
the feeling which the sinner finds in his heart 
whenever he thinks of God. By this instinct 
of his nature he is driven farther and farther 
away from God ; his sins have separated betwixt 
him and God ; and every act of disobedience in- 
creases the distance that divides him from the 
Being in whose presence alone ther^ is life and 
peace. 

Such is the condition of every man who has 
transgressed the law of God. His sin has de- 
graded him, crippled his best faculties, dulled 
his moral sense, and weakened his will. His sin 
has made him ashamed of himself, and afraid of 



54 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

God. What now can Christ the Son of God do 
for this unhappy man? If he is ever to be 
rescued from the bottomless pit into which he 
is sinking, the divine power must rescue him. 
That is the work that the Saviour came into this 
world to do. His name is called Jesus, because 
he saves his people from their sins. But how 
does he save them ? What does he do for 
them ? 

To begin with, it is clear, I think, that what 
he does is done directly for and upon them, 
rather than upon God and his government. 

He does not change God's feelings toward us, 
because God has always loved us. To say that 
the effect of the work of the Son is to change 
the feelings of the Father, is to make of the 
Son and the Father two distinct beings. If 
they are really one, as we profess to believe, 
then w r hat one thinks and feels the other thinks 
and feels. If the feelings of the Father are 
changed by the act of the Son, then there are 
either two gods, or the Son is not God. 

He does not suffer the penalty of our sins in 
our stead. That would be unjust and immoral 
if it were possible ; and our study of the nature 
of law and penalty has shown that it is impos- 
sible. 

He does not a substitute his own voluntary 
sacrificial chastisement " for the penalty due to 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 55 

us. The penalty of sin is spiritual death, moral 
corruption, and ruin. Nothing can be substi- 
tuted for this penalty. With every sin the pen- 
alty is inseparably connected ; and it is no more 
possible to substitute something else for that 
penalty than it would be to step in after the 
flash of the lightning, and substitute some other 
noise — the report of a pistol, say — for the peal 
of thunder. 

No : it is not necessary that God's wrath 
should be appeased, nor that God's law should 
be saved from dishonor. There was no obstacle 
in the heart of God nor in the government of 
God in the way of the restoration of transgres- 
sors. The only obstacle was in the sinner's 
own corrupted heart and weakened will. 

What, then, does Christ do for us? 

1. He reconciles us to God, not God to us. 
" God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto 
himself." The first need of every transgressor 
is to be made to feel that, in spite of the wrong 
that he has done to his Father, his Father loves 
him, and will pardon and save him if he will 
but repent and return. It is hard, as we have 
seen, to inspire this confidence in the sinner. 
Even here and now, with the gospel in our 
hands, and the story of Calvary a household 
word, men will hardly believe that God is will- 
ing to forgive them. How much less possible 



56 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

would it have been if that marvellous revela- 
tion of God's love had never been made ! 

To this world of sinful men, lost and helpless 
in their degradation, fleeing in dread from the 
presence of God, Christ comes. His hands are 
full of blessings ; miracles of help and healing 
crowd the brief hours of his ministry ; though 
sharp rebukes of hypocrisy and meanness are 
sometimes heard from his lips, yet to the multi- 
tudes his voice is a voice of tenderness and 
grace ; he is one who goes about doing good, 
and speaking as never man spake ; and he says 
of himself continually, that he is not only Son 
of man, but Son of God, — nay, that he and the 
Father are one. By this divine life, by these 
transcendent personal claims, he arouses the 
enmity of the Jewish hierarchy. Their craft 
is in clanger. The doctrine of this Teacher will 
overthrow their cumbersome ritual machinery, 
and substitute for it a simpler faith. There- 
fore at their hands he suffers constant persecu- 
tion until at length, bursting forth with fiendish 
rage, they cry out, " Crucify him ! " and lead 
him forth to prison and to death. 

It was done in Judaea nineteen centuries ago, 
but the bad passions that begot the bad deed live 
in the human nature in every age. No man can 
deny that his sins crucified the Saviour, unless 
he can deny that the human nature belongs to 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 57 

him ; unless he is sure that he never had an 
unkind feeling toward a rival, and that he 
never felt cross or resentful toward another 
whose good conduct shamed or reproved him. 

The Saviour knew when he came that suffer- 
ing and death would surely be his portion. He 
knew that the selfishness and the malice of men 
would not suffer him to live on the earth, that 
if he did bear witness to the truth they would 
slay him ; he knew that his life of unwearied 
love would end upon the cross. Yet he shrunk 
not from this fiery baptism ; for he knew also 
that when men had glutted their rage upon him, 
when they stood beneath his cross, and looked 
on him whom they had pierced, when they 
remembered his deeds of mercy and his words 
of gentle pleading, — how he had borne their 
griefs and carried their sorrows all his life, — 
that a great horror of remorse and contrition 
would fill their souls, and that they would smite 
upon their breasts, saying, " Truly this was a 
righteous man ! " And when the third day after, 
the bars of his sepulchre were broken, and he 
came forth leading captivity captive, and proving 
his divinity by this last and most infallible proof, 
then he knew that there would be a mighty 
reaction in the hearts of men towards him, and 
that in remembering the life and the death of 
Him who claimed to be one with God, they 



58 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

could no longer have any doubt that God loved 
them. Such a demonstration as this of what 
God is willing to do that men may be saved 
would, he knew, conquer their enmity and their 
suspicion, and bring them in penitence and trust 
to his feet. 

That, at any rate, is the fact of history. 
Christ said, u And I, if I be lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto me." The proph- 
ecy has been abundantly fulfilled. In all the 
ages, men looking on the cross of Christ have 
seen in it a proof of God's love for them ; and, 
believing in his love, have come to him, confess- 
ing their sins, and consecrating their lives to the 
service of Him who died for them. 

They are sinners still, and sinners they must 
always be. They can never remember without 
regret their past evil doings ; but the fact that 
sweeps away all this bad consciousness of guilt 
and dread is the fact that is brought home to 
them with such mighty power in the cross of 
Christ, — that God loves them with an infinite 
love. Unworthy they are ; but they have no 
right to despise themselves, or to despair of 
themselves, after he has shown such love for 
them. 

Thus it was, in the language of Paul, that 
" when we were enemies we were reconciled to 
God by the death of his Son." Thus it was 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 59 

that we who " sometime were afar off were 
made nigh by the blood of Christ." 

2. Bat this is only the beginning of what he 
does for us. " If when we were enemies we 
were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, 
much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved 
by his life." Being brought back to God in 
loving confidence, being re-united with him by 
faith, we again become partakers of the divine 
nature. To the law of God we are again, in 
our ruling choice, obedient ; and the result of 
obedience to that law is spiritual life. u You 
hath he quickened " (or restored to life), says 
Paul, " who were dead in trespasses and sins." 
The branch that was separated from the vine, 
and that was withering and dying, is again 
grafted upon the parent stock, and life returns 
to it. So long as that vital union continues, the 
soul will live. 

Thus although spiritual death is the conse- 
quence of sin, and though there is not in nature 
nor within the power of man any deliverance 
from this death, yet in Christ who is our life, 
we are raised from the dead. By receiving of 
the infinite fulness of his divine life, spiritual 
life is renewed in us. Sitting at his feet, and 
learning of him, we receive his spirit ; a reme- 
dial and restorative work begins ; our habits of 
thought and of feeling are changed ; until at 



60 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

length death no longer reigns in our natures, 
for we are alive unto God through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. 

Through man's disobedience the order of 
nature has become to him the minister of wrath 
and ruin ; if he is ever to be saved from the de- 
struction which he has thus invoked upon him- 
self, it must be by the intervention of a power 
above nature. The natural order must not be 
set aside, but a remedial order may be instituted 
whose function it shall be to repair the ruin sin 
has wrought. For the poison of sin, the effect 
of which must be death, the supernatural grace 
of God in Christ is the antidote. The curse 
is in the nature of things ; the cure is from 
above nature. What the law could not do, God 
has done by sending his Son. Love can do 
many things that law cannot do ; nevertheless 
the two agencies work together as co-ordinate 
forces in Christ's kingdom. The grace does not 
make void the law : the law does not prevent the 
grace. I do not set aside the law of gravita- 
tion if I pick up and place upon his feet a lame 
man who has fallen, and cannot rise. Perhaps 
he cannot even stand and walk after he is lifted 
up, without being held up and steadied ; and 
yet it may be necessary to his recovery that he 
should stand and walk. If I put my arm about 
him, then, and walk with him, I do not set aside 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 61 

the law of gravitation : I simply counteract the 
effects of its working upon him. The law of 
gravitation is a good law ; yet, through his own 
fault or infirmity, it may become the instrument 
of injury to my neighbor. Then I have a right 
to interfere by my will to counteract its injuri- 
ous effects. Is the law of gravitation dishon- 
ored when its injurious effects are thus merci- 
fully overruled? Does the lame man respect 
that law any less because I hold him up when 
he is too feeble to stand ? 

A benevolent will may thus, without casting 
any discredit upon law or interfering with the 
uniformity of its operations, modify the processes 
of nature, and prevent the results that her laws 
are producing. Man can do this : is it not 
likely that God can do more ? Without weak- 
ening the force of any of his moral or spiritual 
laws, he can bring into this scene of disorder 
and ruin, a grace that is mightier to save than 
the forces already at work are to destroy. . 

Humanity, lying crippled and helpless outside 
the beautiful gate of the temple of the Holy, 
hears Christ saying, " Rise up and walk," and, 
grasping the almighty hand that is extended, is 
lifted up from degradation and infirmity. The 
outstretched hand may be refused ; that power 
is granted to human wills : if it be refused, there 
is no other power that can save. But he who 



62 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

will accept its aid, disabled though he may be 
by his own sin, 'shall be lifted up; "yea, he 
shall be holden up, for God is able to make him 
stand." 

This, then, is the substance of the work that 
Jesus Christ comes into the world to do. To 
conquer the enmity and suspicion of men by his 
own great sacrifice ; to make them believe that 
God loves them ; then, having won their confi- 
dence, to repair, by the communication of his 
own life-giving spirit, the ruin that sin has 
wrought in their natures ; to restore their souls 
that are sinking in spiritual death, to life and 
health and peace, — this is what Christ does for 
men. He reconciles us by his death : he saves 
us by his life. 

It will be objected to this explanation of the 
work of Christ, that it does not accord with 
the Scripture. The sufferings of Christ, it will 
be said, are there spoken of as judicially laid 
upon him. The penalties of sin are in the 
Bible represented as positive inflictions from 
the hand of a judge, not as results taking place 
in the order of nature. That is true ; and the 
difficulty cannot be fully explained without 
entering upon a more elaborate discussion of 
the principles which ought to govern Biblical 
interpretation, than there is room for in this 
place. Of that more, perhaps, hereafter. It 



THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. 63 

is sufficient to say that the Bible does not 
al\va3 r s state the truths of religion with scien- 
tific precision ; that many of those texts which 
are made the subjects of grammatical and logi- 
cal analysis are simply the expression of deep 
religious feeling. Such expressions will always 
take a highly objective and poetical form. If, 
therefore, we find texts which represent Christ 
as suffering judicially in our stead, and God as 
being propitiated by his sufferings, we need not 
deny the first principles of morality. It is possi- 
ble, surely, that these words may be figures ; 
but it is not possible that penalty should be 
transferred from a guilty being to an innocent 
one, nor that the wrath of God against a sinner 
should be appeased by the suffering of one sin- 
less person, nor that any thing whatever should 
be substituted for that spiritual death which is 
the inevitable penalty of violated spiritual law. 
The conception of a reign of law had not 
been reached by the people to whom the Scrip- 
ture was first given, and the truth was put in 
language that they could understand. Much 
that we know takes place under laws of the 
strictest uniformity is represented in the Bible 
as the direct effect of God's volition. It is not 
true that the natural order is any less divine 
than the supernatural interposition, 

" For if He thunder by law, ilic thunder is still His voice ; " 



64 JOSEPH COOK REVIEWED. 

but when it becomes plain to us that the retri- 
butions of the moral law are part of the uni- 
form course of nature, we are delivered from 
a great deal of needless anxiety about the foun- 
dations of God's moral government. 



WAS 



BRONSON ALCOTT'S SCHOOL 



A TYPE OF 



GOD'S MOKAL GOVERNMENT! 



A REVIEW OF 



JOSEPH COOK'S THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT. 

BY 

WASHINGTON GLADDEN. 



BOSTON: 
LOCKWOOD, BROOKS, AND COMPANY. 

1877. 



NOW READY. 



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By Rev. Washington Gladden. 
Crown 8vo. Cloth. $1.75. 



The Gospel Invitation. 

Sermons related to the Boston revival of 1877. 
By 1 7 Clergymen of different Denominations. 
Small 8vo. Cloth. $1.50. 



What is Art? 

Or, Art Theories and Methods concisely stated. 
By S. G. W. Benjamin. 
12mo. Cloth, flexible. 75 cents. 



READY IN JUNE. 
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The initial volume of the " Wayside Series." A very 
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One volume. 16mo. Cloth. 



Either of the above books sent, postpaid, on receipt of price. 



L0CKW00D, BBOOKS, & CO., Publishers, 

381 Washington St., Boston. 



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